5 ms·

Looking for a real Gmail alternative

7 points by akulbe 14y ago

Confession: I'm on the Google tit. Completely. ALL of my personal email and domains are either native Gmail, or Google Apps domains. I have everything set up to come to my primary Gmail account, and all my personal domains send mail as those accounts, so no one is any the wiser. I want to get off of all the Google stuff, but I can't find another email provider that has all (or even mostly all) the features that I can get with Gmail. Do you guys know of a provider that will let you have one domain manage email for all your others? and send email from those domains? (through your main account?) One of the other things I have with the Google Hosted email is when an email is addressed to someone other than myname@mydomain.com, it still sends it to me. Call me paranoid... but with Google shutting down all these services... I'm starting to wonder when Gmail won't be the next one that gets discontinued. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay. If I found something that could do everything I get from Gmail, I'd be happy to pay for it.

slater 14y ago
Some stuff here: http://brooksreview.net/2013/03/quit-i-dare-you/ http://brooksreview.net/2013/03/quit-i-dare-you/
jfoster 14y ago
Fair enough if you want to quit Gmail on principle, but in case you genuinely are concerned about Gmail shutting down, don't be. It's one of Google's most valuable assets. They use it internally, thousands of businesses using Google Apps use it, and the adoption rate is so high that the FTC would probably investigate them if they tried to shut it down.
- stephenr 14y ago
  Google is an advertising business - just because they use Email internally doesn't mean offering it to third parties is a core part of their business. Also - I doubt the FTC has any power to force a company to provide email services - it's not like they're a phone company providing the only service available to a specific area. Besides - they don't have to "shut down" Gmail for it to become undesirable to use it. They've announced heavy restrictions on access to calendars - how long until IMAP access is discontinued and they force people to use webmail or one of their apps?
  - tssva 14y ago
    They haven't announced heavy restrictions on access to calendars. Anyone can still write a client to access Google Calendars. They just need to use Google's calendar api instead of caldav. The method of access has changed but not the level of access.
    - stephenr 14y ago
      Forcing the use of a proprietary service specific api when they have a working implementation of a standards based protocol to do the same thing, is a heavy restriction.
bigyahu 14y ago
Could try Zeromail, they just came out of beta.
- saiko-chriskun 14y ago
  zeromail seems to only allow gmail accounts?
Sami_Lehtinen 14y ago
Run your own server, that's what I'm doing. Yep, it took a while to setup everything correctly. But it was a nice learning process too, so it wasn't complete waste of time. Now I'm also fully independent, I can use any Linux hosting or run my own hardware server where ever I want to. https, imap, smtps, webmail, learning and list based spam filtering, in / out going mail, gpg encryption, automated incremental backups every 4 hours, full backup monthly etc. I also got working certs with my mail server. Many providers do not provide that, not even Google.
- ryan-allen 14y ago
  I would LOVE a tutorial. Heck, I'd pay for one! I've avoided setting up email for years and years. It kinda seems like a good time to learn. What are you using for SPAM filtering? Is it as effective as Google?
  - Sami_Lehtinen 14y ago
    spamassassin with blocking lists and bayes filtering, it's very effective once you have given it some data to 'learn' from. If you have many users with similar kinds of profiles (like company domain) then you can use site wide bayes filtering. https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesFaq https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesFaq
- akulbe 14y ago
  I don't want to play sysadmin for email. I know that's possible... but not how I want to spend my time. That's why I'm willing to farm that out to someone else, and pay for it.
shadowrunner 14y ago
Outlook.com - it's where I fled to from Gmail.
- akulbe 14y ago
  It is good, but there's no way to check accounts from other domains... with your outlook.com account. That, and it's another free service. I made the comment that I'm not opposed to paying... I'm getting to the point where for something as important as email, I'd rather pay for it.... because I'm no longer interested in being the product for sale. Know what I mean? #facebook #google #twitter

7 points by akulbe 14y ago

slater 14y ago

Some stuff here: http://brooksreview.net/2013/03/quit-i-dare-you/ http://brooksreview.net/2013/03/quit-i-dare-you/

jfoster 14y ago

Fair enough if you want to quit Gmail on principle, but in case you genuinely are concerned about Gmail shutting down, don't be. It's one of Google's most valuable assets. They use it internally, thousands of businesses using Google Apps use it, and the adoption rate is so high that the FTC would probably investigate them if they tried to shut it down.

stephenr 14y ago
Google is an advertising business - just because they use Email internally doesn't mean offering it to third parties is a core part of their business. Also - I doubt the FTC has any power to force a company to provide email services - it's not like they're a phone company providing the only service available to a specific area. Besides - they don't have to "shut down" Gmail for it to become undesirable to use it. They've announced heavy restrictions on access to calendars - how long until IMAP access is discontinued and they force people to use webmail or one of their apps?
- tssva 14y ago
  They haven't announced heavy restrictions on access to calendars. Anyone can still write a client to access Google Calendars. They just need to use Google's calendar api instead of caldav. The method of access has changed but not the level of access.
  - stephenr 14y ago
    Forcing the use of a proprietary service specific api when they have a working implementation of a standards based protocol to do the same thing, is a heavy restriction.

bigyahu 14y ago

Could try Zeromail, they just came out of beta.

saiko-chriskun 14y ago
zeromail seems to only allow gmail accounts?

Sami_Lehtinen 14y ago

Run your own server, that's what I'm doing. Yep, it took a while to setup everything correctly. But it was a nice learning process too, so it wasn't complete waste of time. Now I'm also fully independent, I can use any Linux hosting or run my own hardware server where ever I want to. https, imap, smtps, webmail, learning and list based spam filtering, in / out going mail, gpg encryption, automated incremental backups every 4 hours, full backup monthly etc. I also got working certs with my mail server. Many providers do not provide that, not even Google.

ryan-allen 14y ago
I would LOVE a tutorial. Heck, I'd pay for one! I've avoided setting up email for years and years. It kinda seems like a good time to learn. What are you using for SPAM filtering? Is it as effective as Google?
- Sami_Lehtinen 14y ago
  spamassassin with blocking lists and bayes filtering, it's very effective once you have given it some data to 'learn' from. If you have many users with similar kinds of profiles (like company domain) then you can use site wide bayes filtering. https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesFaq https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesFaq
akulbe 14y ago
I don't want to play sysadmin for email. I know that's possible... but not how I want to spend my time. That's why I'm willing to farm that out to someone else, and pay for it.

shadowrunner 14y ago

Outlook.com - it's where I fled to from Gmail.

akulbe 14y ago
It is good, but there's no way to check accounts from other domains... with your outlook.com account. That, and it's another free service. I made the comment that I'm not opposed to paying... I'm getting to the point where for something as important as email, I'd rather pay for it.... because I'm no longer interested in being the product for sale. Know what I mean? #facebook #google #twitter